Pink Cake
by HeatherSuoh
Summary: Chihiro Fujisaki smashes a pink cake, climbs a tree all by himself, and turns 17 in his father's arms. Fluffy, feel-good family bonding; written for the birthday of my child. Complete.


Chihiro Fujisaki was 16 years and 364 days old, and he was feeling ever so slightly resentful of his father. This feeling was almost riveting.

For the past 16 years and 364 days, Chihiro had been a very, very _good_ boy—Almost obsessively so. His behavior record was squeaky clean. His parents used to _laugh_ at the idea of him growing into a rebellious teen one day. Well, look at him now!

He looked at himself in the mirror of the bathroom, cheeks still a bit red and puffy from having cried out his frustration. He made eye contact with his reflection and held a straight, serious face, trying this new identity on for size. _I am Chihiro Fujisaki,_ he thought to himself _._

 _I am a rebellious, bad-news teen._  
 _I am the sort of boy dads don't want their daughters bringing home._

(As he thought this, he narrowed his eyes and clenched his tiny, cherubic jaw.)

 _I am the sort of boy… who disobeys his parents._  
 _… who sneaks out of the house._  
 _… who privately, to his friends, refers to his mother as a "bitch"._

(Leon had said that in front of Chihiro once, absolutely scandalizing him. Chihiro's jaw had dropped and he'd said, stuttering all the while, _You can't say something like that!_ Leon and Mondo had teased him for his reaction, but Kiyotaka had agreed—Chihiro and Kiyotaka _often_ agreed with one another on questions of morality. The moment passed after that, but for the rest of the day, Chihiro felt terrible for Leon's poor mother.)

 _I am the sort of boy who resents my doting father._  
 _I am the sort of boy who smashes a pink cake._

Chihiro felt himself expanding with potential. It didn't feel unfeasible at all; it felt like a decision he could make. One step over a tiny, invisible line and he could change everything that he was. He was not, as he previously thought, doomed to being Chihiro Fujisaki, the very, very _good_ boy with the spotless record of behavior.

Then again, out of all the misdemeanors he'd just listed, the only thing he had _actually_ done was smash a pink cake.

* * *

Akiko Fujisaki didn't know what to make of it.

She'd just returned home from work a few hours after her husband (she'd sent him off to buy a birthday cake), and the house was so silent it could've been empty. That wasn't odd; all three of them spent countless hours with their attention committed silently to their computer screens. Chihiro spent all day at school on the computer only to come home and get back on it again; Taichi and Akiko spent all day at work on their computers only to come home and get back on them again. As a family unit, they were somewhat antisocial.

The silence hadn't phased her. It was the mess.

She swung open the refrigerator door to see the cake that Taichi had picked for Chihiro's birthday tomorrow, and found an absolute mess of pink icing and sticky, germy chunks of cake. It looked like a massacre had occurred. She scanned the kitchen for a murder weapon and didn't find one. It was strange, she thought, that the mess was only on the inside of the fridge. No evidence of pink cake on the countertops. Had he… _tripped_ into the refrigerator?

She took the stand out of the fridge and turned it in her hand, snickering at what she imagined was her husband's handiwork. That _did_ sound just like him—to have had some kind of outrageous _cake disaster,_ and then simply set it in the fridge like everything was fine, like perhaps it could still be salvaged.

Meticulous, that one. He did the same thing with his programs. He refused to accept that a piece of code was simply _broken_ and give up. He would continue going at it and going at it until he'd doctored it.

A piece of code was quite unlike a cake. This one was totaled.

She carried it with her down the hallway and to the computer room, which was pitch black except for the white glow of a screen illuminating her husbands face. She peeked her head in the doorway. "Taichi~? Have we had a bit of trouble with the birthday cake, Darling?"

He jumped a bit at the interruption. He reached across the desk to pull the lamp chain. "Ah… No? I didn't think so. Do you not like the one I got?"

Akiko frowned a little bit, walking all the way into the room now and holding the mess of a cake before her. Taichi squinted at it, puzzled, like it were a math equation he was trying to solve. For a long moment, he did nothing but stare at it.

"I think… I need to talk to Chihiro," he said.

* * *

Chihiro finished rinsing pink icing from his fingers and left the bathroom, still feeling hot-headed. The thrill of being a bad boy was already starting to fade, replacing itself with something else, something yucky feeling. Not guilt. Fear of consequence. He thought about the smashed cake downstairs and wondered how he might be able to blame it on something else. He's never been good at lying. He's not even sure he's ever lied on purpose before, but this situation may call for it.

Could he go and throw it out before anyone saw it? The mystery of the disappearing cake? His mom would accuse Taichi of never having bought it. Neither of them would ever think to accuse Chihiro of having tossed it out. Chihiro was a good boy; would never do such a thing.

He paced in circles around his bedroom, his face growing hot with the threat of tears again. With every passing moment, the idea of disappointing his parents felt less badass and more horrifying. He swallowed the lump in his throat and put his hand to his bedroom door handle. Inhale. Exhale.

He mentally prepared himself to commit a second misdemeanor: to dash down into the kitchen and discard the ruined cake as quickly as possible. As soon as he touched the door handle, though, he heard his father coming up the stairs.

"Princess~?" Taichi called up hopefully. "Can we talk about something?" _He had already seen it._ A wave of feeling overcame Chihiro, making him feel dizzy with the knowledge of what he'd done.

No matter what, there was no way that he could face his father right now. Panicked, he scanned his room for an out. His eyes landed on the made-up bed beneath the window. Pretend to sleep? No. Taichi might just wake him. Out the window? No way. The footsteps grew closer down the hall. Chihiro took the same out he'd been using his entire life to protect him from uncomfortable conversations: he hid in the closet.

Taichi knocked politely on his son's bedroom door. "Princess?" he asked again, before slowly turning the handle and peeking his head in. His eyes scanned the lilac interior of the room; it was empty. Behind the hanging coats and skirts, Chihiro held his breath. Taichi frowned at the empty room and shut the door again.

* * *

Akiko was sitting on the living room couch, listening to _Summer_ by Vivaldi. The music played softly from the television, and Akiko sat with her chin in her hands, her eyes closed and her expression relaxed. Taichi walked quietly into the room and sat beside her, resulting in quite the comical image, had anyone been around to see it. He was rigid, worried, wringing his hands. She was quiet, soft, relaxed all the way to her bones. She opened one eye to peer at him.

"That was fast," she said.

"She isn't here," Taichi said, attempting to sound nonchalant but not quite succeeding. "She must've left earlier, without even telling me."

Akiko wrapped an arm around Taichi's shoulders and pulled him closer. "Hey, we always knew this might happen. She's a teenager. Teenagers do teenager things. Even the ones that were squeaky clean kids. Let's just be glad she's not out doing drugs."

Akiko blinked, then added: "... To our knowledge."

Taichi's face paled. He hadn't even considered drugs.

Akiko giggled at him and squeezed him briefly. "She's probably just upset about something."

"Why wouldn't she just tell me?" Taichi asked, staring at the tv screen. Circles bounced around like a screensaver as the music played.

"Teenagers are complicated," Akiko shrugged.

"She _always_ tells me things," Taichi frowned. "Is that going to change now?"

"Maybe," said Akiko truthfully. Taichi frowned harder. She pulled him back onto the couch so that they were lying against the back of it. "Relax. It'll all be okay. Just listen to the music and try not to think about it."

Taichi achieved that wet, glazed look to his eyes. Akiko smiled sympathetically. "Come on… It's going to be fine. Don't get so—And now he's crying."

"Sorry," Taichi said with a forced laugh, pressing his hands over his eyes.

* * *

Chihiro couldn't leave the closet. He was too afraid that one of his parents would barge in too quickly for him to hide, discovering him and his _web of lies_. (Chihiro had now, in the past 16 years and 364 days, lied to his parents exactly one time, and it was already too much to keep up with.) After a few minutes of hiding petrified inside a coat, he heard his phone go off across the room, and crept out of the closet to check it.

It was a message from his mother, asking where he was. The room around Chihiro spun. This is the part where the lie gets more complex. He stared at the message. To answer or not to answer?

 _Mondo took me to dinner for my birthday! I'll be home at 10!_

Chihiro held his breath.

 _Have fun sweetie! I love you!_

Exhale.

Chihiro crawled under his bed and called Mondo.

* * *

Akiko laid with her husband on the couch and thought about her relationship with her child. She considered her relationship with Chihiro to be a good one; but very different from the relationship that Taichi had with him.

She didn't entirely understand the relationship Taichi and Chihiro shared, but at the same time, she felt she wasn't necessarily supposed to. Their relationship was so _emotional._ Not that hers wasn't emotional at _all,_ but it certainly wasn't like _that._

Long, long ago, when Chihiro was in elementary school, he had gotten quite mad at Akiko for dictating what he could and couldn't wear out of the house. (This was during the first "I want to dress like a girl" debacle, and Akiko thought it better that Chihiro learn to love who he was.)

Chihiro yelled _I HATE YOU_ and slammed his bedroom door with all the strength his little arms could muster. He probably didn't even remember it anymore.

Akiko had rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" she said back.

Taichi bawled for hours. She didn't get it. He wasn't even the one Chihiro had said it to.

He wasn't the one Chihiro hated.

* * *

Chihiro lied beneath the bed with the phone ringing in his ear and thought about his relationship with his mother. It wasn't bad, but it was definitely different than his relationship with his father.

Akiko didn't seem to fully comprehend the negative scale of emotions. In the event that she felt sad, she just chose not to feel that way anymore. Chihiro was able to do that sometimes, but not to the level of expertise that Akiko did. Because of that, going to her when he was upset wasn't always the best idea. She would tell him that nothing he was upset about was "that big of a deal". Sometimes that was helpful, and other times it wasn't.

He remembered one time, when he was about fourteen, he had been crying a good deal, and Akiko was holding his head against her chest.

"You are so much stronger than you think" she'd said. "You are the strongest person I know."

"Do you really mean that?" Chihiro had asked, tilting his head up to look at her. That sort of language was ever so slightly out of character for her.

"Well, no," Akiko had said. "I only said that to make you feel better. Did it work?"

Chihiro laughed and playfully hit her on the arm. _"Mom!"_

"Of _course_ I mean it, you _dummy."_

* * *

Mondo Oowada had been doing yard work for an older woman. Not that he actually had any interest in the woman—he actually had an astute interest in Chihiro Fujisaki—but he liked being able to tell people that he did this, and so he had been shirtless in her backyard when he answered his phone.

"Mondo speaking."

"Mondo! I'm in a situation, kind of."

Mondo set down the hedge clippers and squinted at the afternoon sky. "Situation? Why you whispering, kid?"

"Because my parents don't know I'm home. Can I come over to your house?"

Mondo glanced at the window of the older woman's house. "Ah… I'd love that, but I'm not at home right now. I'm actually still at Mrs. Sugawara's."

"Your yard job?" Chihiro asked, accidentally letting his voice get a little louder. "You're still doing that? Seriously, you're going to make me jealous!"

"Nothing to worry about babe," Mondo laughed. "You know I've got eyes only for you."

(The woman was actually about 80 years old, and badly needed his help, but it was better for his reputation that everyone believe she was an attractive cougar of some kind. Plus, he found it adorable when Chihiro would pout about it.)

"Sure, but… Ah, Mondo, I'm really in a bad situation here."

Mondo blinked, taking a seat on the lawn in the shade. "What's going on…?"

Chihiro took an audible breath. "I got really angry at my dad earlier, and I did something really bad, and there's this huge mess and I couldn't clean it up and then—"

"Did you stab him?" Mondo asked, and it would've been funny had his voice not been gravely serious. Chihiro almost shrieked.

"Did I _what!?_ Of course I didn't stab him! You think I'd stab my dad!?"

Mondo released a sigh of relief. Chihiro wondered if he would've been better off calling Leon.

"Well, as long as you didn't stab him, I'm sure he'll forgive you if you just apologize. Your dad is a very understanding, level-headed man."

"You know he can't hear you right now, right?"

Mondo was comically petrified of Taichi. He desperately wanted his approval, and Taichi was not apt to give it.

"Right," Mondo said, sounding embarrassed.

Mrs. Sugawara opened her curtains and waved him into the house, brandishing a plate of cookies. With her old, arthritic hands, she tried and failed to open the window and call to him. It was getting late, the sun dwindling behind the horizon, and she would want him to come in now so she could thank him (and so he could keep her company a while, of course, her children never called her.)

"Ah—I gotta go, babe, Mrs. Sugawara is…" He cut himself off. Nope, not yet. He was _not_ going to tell Chihiro he had to go cheer up an elderly woman and eat cookies. "Hey, I can meet you at the park in like a half hour, okay babe? Does that work?"

"She's _what?_ Mondo, what are you doing with her anyway!?"

He shouted, as he does when he's nervous. _"I love you too, bye!"_

The call ended.

* * *

Taichi and Akiko should've made dinner, but instead, they both fell asleep on the couch listening to Vivaldi.

* * *

Taichi had a dream that he was sailing a boat on the ocean.

This was quite unusual, as Taichi has a phobia of open water, but in the dream he was calm, dressed in white. He stared harrowingly into the ocean like it were an equation to be solved. The ocean stared back.

The water quickly grew rancorous. It threw Taichi's boat around angrily, like a child throwing a tantrum. Taichi held onto the wall as tightly as he could, trying desperately to stay on the boat. It threatened to tip, but it didn't quite, though the waves yanked it back and forth and the interior filled with water; a wall of water hit him right in the face and left him choking.

Somehow, over the roaring sounds of the ocean, he heard his child's voice. Chihiro screamed out somewhere, like he were hurt. Taichi's heart shot into his throat. Immediately, without thinking, he leapt from the boat and into the water.

" _Chihiro!"_ he screamed, and the waves pushed him backwards a considerable distance. He seemed to realize very suddenly that he didn't know how to swim. He tried anyway, taking mouthfuls of water, every wave shooting more of it up his nose, into his eyes. He coughed and spit and screamed out for his son again, but then the ocean overtook him, and that was left was blackness.

In his final moments, he heard Chihiro scream in pain again, and helplessly he thought to himself: _I've failed. I failed again._

* * *

Akiko had a dream that she was seventeen years old, and pregnant, and she was baking a cake in her kitchen.

She had all of her supplies set out on the yellow countertop, flour and sugar and milk and butter. She hummed happily to herself as she measured out the flour in a large measuring cup, then upturned it into the mixing bowl. The sun shined in through the blinds and she could hear birds chirping happily outside. It was a wonderful day to be baking.

Next, she reached for the package of sugar, unfolded the top of it, and began to measure it out into her measuring cup. The white grains cascaded cheerily out of the bag like an avalanche, but she saw something else come out with it, too—Ew, was that a bug? A cockroach in the sugar? What a nuisance that would be.

She used her fingers to gently separate the sugar in the measuring cup until she found it. It wasn't a bug. Her stomach dropped. It was an _embryo._ A little pink embryo caked in white sugar. Her face heated and her hands went to her stomach. Hadn't she been pregnant just a second ago? She'd given birth already!? How could she have forgotten! What kind of awful mother accidentally leaves their baby in the sugar package?

She cursed under her breath, cradling the precious embryo in her cupped hands. She brought it to the sink and turned the water on weakly to clean the sugar. When she began to wash it, the embryo started to cry. It broke her heart. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" she wailed.

It was impossibly small and fragile, a curled pink body with big black eyes, too small and undeveloped to have any sex characteristics. She finished washing the baby while it cried and set it gently onto a folded towel. "I'm so sorry," she said again, her hands and her legs and her whole body shaking. She was an awful mother. She was an awful, awful mother who forgot she even _had_ a baby!

The embryo spoke. _I hate you!_ it said, and then it crawled right away.

Akiko's legs gave out from under her. She sat on the ground in the center of the kitchen and cried and cried and cried.

* * *

Chihiro felt overwhelmingly masculine as he snuck out of the house. He crawled on his bed on his hands and knees, pushed up the heavy window pane, and positioned himself in the open window. He felt the breeze against his face. The light of the sunset left the outside world glowing orange.

 _I can do this,_ Chihiro thought.  
 _I can climb a tree like a normal boy. Other boys have been doing this their entire lives._

Chihiro had not, but still, he took the shaky step from the window sill onto the closest, thickest limb of the tree. He hesitated to put his whole weight on it, but then he did, and he was in a tree— _A tree!_

He wrapped his arms and legs around the branch, like he was giving it a hug, and though he felt terribly scared, he also felt incredibly proud.

He remembered when he was little, and all the boys in his neighborhood liked to climb trees, and he could never join them, because he was too weak to pull himself up. They all laughed at him. Well, look at him now!

He crawled slowly, carefully towards the base of the tree.

 _I am Chihiro Fujisaki._

Hand over hand, careful, careful.

 _I am a boy. A real boy._

He wedged a black mary jane into a crevice in the trunk and took hold.

 _The sort of boy who sneaks out of the house._

His skirt snagged during his descent. He stared at the loose thread like it was a prize he had won.

 _The kind of boy who climbs a tree._

When he was as far down and he could possibly get by climbing, he took the leap to the ground.

 _I am Chihiro Fujisaki._

* * *

When Chihiro finally reached the park, the sun was gone and so were all of the people. The park was completely empty, save for a small red bench with a familiar figure. His feet started moving faster when he saw Mondo, all on their own. He ran up behind him and threw his arms around his neck.

Mondo flinched from the surprise, then grinned, turning around in the bench to hug Chihiro properly. "There you are! I was starting to think you stood me up." He held Chihiro under his arms and picked him up, lifting him over the back of the bench and setting him in his lap. Chihiro laughed—but then he cried. Very suddenly, and without warning.

He curled into his boyfriend's chest and cried and cried.

Mondo pet his hair, but he didn't speak.

"This is the worst birthday I've ever had," Chihiro said.

Mondo frowned. "Come on… Your birthday hasn't even started yet. What's so wrong?"

"What _isn't_ wrong?" Chihiro scowled. "I've turned into a delinquent"—Mondo held back a laugh at that—"My dad is going to hate me, I lied to my parents and… and my boyfriend spent the whole day flirting with some _sexy older lady!"_

Mondo held his breath, and tried very hard to hold back a smile, but it broke through anyway.

"What's so funny?" Chihiro pouted, tears still running down his cheeks.

"She's…" Mondo looked away and scratched indiscriminately at the nape of his neck. "She's 82."

Chihiro blinked. "What?"

Mondo grinned modestly. "Mrs. Sugawara. She's 82. And lonely. I help her out cause she ain't got anybody, you know, to do that stuff for her."

Chihiro blushed. Then he started to giggle uncontrollably. "No _way!"_ he yelled between bouts of laughter. "Can I _meet her?"_

"Totally," Mondo said, trying to keep his cool despite being visibly embarrassed. "I've told her all about you, she'd love it."

Chihiro felt utterly overwhelmed with love for his boyfriend. He reached up and hugged him again. "You know, if you actually talked about stuff like that, I bet my dad would like you a lot more."

"Fat chance." Mondo hugged him back. "I think I could save a litter of kittens from a fire and he'd _still_ hate me." He took his boyfriend's face into his hands and looked him in the eyes. "What can I do to make your birthday less sucky?"

Chihiro twisted around to look across the park.

"Help me climb that tree over there," he said.

* * *

Taichi and Akiko woke up dazed and disoriented.

"Man…" Taichi mumbled. "We passed out."

"A little bit," Akiko said, yawning and pulling herself up to sit. The CD that had been playing when they fell asleep had ended, and the house was dark and silent. She gasped suddenly. "Damn it! We were supposed to go get another cake!"

"Shit," Taichi mumbled. He stood up and went for his shoes. "I'll go and get it now."

"You don't need to do that," Akiko said. "We can ask Ichiko to get it on her way here tomorrow."

"No," Taichi said, putting his shoes on anyway. Every birthday, they always had cake for breakfast, and he didn't want to break that tradition. He had a feeling that, whatever Chihiro's reasoning for smashing the cake was, he would be regretful by the next morning. And he didn't deserve to feel too regretful on his birthday.

Taichi would make sure he knew from the get go that he was forgiven; that everything was fine.

"I want everything to be normal tomorrow morning, when Chihiro wakes up. I want her to feel like everything's okay."

* * *

Chihiro lost track of time and completely forgot that he told his mother he'd be home by 10.

 _Jeez,_ he thought. _I really have become a delinquent._

On the plus side, it was half past 11, which meant his parents would be asleep by now anyway. He wouldn't have to deal with any of this until the morning, at least. He entered through the garage, trying very hard to keep quiet. No sooner than he shut the door behind himself, his father appeared.

Taichi stepped into the garage from the dining room door and stopped on the top step when he saw Chihiro there.

"Chihiro…?"

* * *

Taichi's heart froze in his chest. There was tension—a lot of tension—which was a feeling both horrible and new. Things had never been hard with Chihiro before, it had always been so easy to be with him, but right now they were standing feet away from one another and the world had never felt so wrong.

"... How are you…?" Taichi asked slowly. He noticed the way Chihiro was standing, his feet apart and his hands near his chest, like he was on the defense.

"I'm fine." Chihiro said. He didn't sound himself.

They were both thinking about the smashed pink cake. Taichi still had absolutely no idea why he'd done it. But Chihiro did, and that was the worst part; Chihiro had done it for no reason other than to hurt his dad.

"I was just… going to go get another cake," Taichi said quietly, like he needed to explain his reason for being in the garage.

Silence. Loud, heavy silence.

"... You don't have to tell me why you smashed it, if you don't want to, but do you maybe want, ah, a different kind? Than the one I got?"

Taichi's expression was so concentrated, so clearly trying to keep from folding in on itself, that Chihiro couldn't bare to look at it. He looked away.

Chihiro wondered if he could even will the words out of his mouth. It felt so dry. His heart was pounding. He wanted things to be normal again. But then he spoke despite himself.

"I didn't like what it said on it."

"Oh," Taichi said, though he didn't understand. He thought about the pink cake he'd ordered that afternoon. It hadn't said anything out of the ordinary. _Happy Birthday, Princess._ Was it too childish? Chihiro thought that 17 was too old for a cake like that? He could sort of see the logic in that. "You want a more grown up cake, right?" he asked.

Chihiro could cry out of the sheer frustration. He didn't _want_ to spell it out. He didn't think he could. The words were too hard, too _embarrassing,_ for some reason, though he wasn't sure why he was embarrassed.

He clenched and unclenched his fists; squeezed his eyes shut. His dad wasn't going to connect the dots himself. He'd have to say it.

"I'm a _boy,_ Dad."

Silence again.

The words sunk slowly into Taichi's head.

"I like to dress this way." Chihiro started getting choked up, then, from the nervousness, the anxiousness, the vulnerability. He squirmed in his mary janes. "I like my clothes. But I'm still a boy anyway. And everyone calls me one. All the people at school… They accept me like this. I don't want to be called a girl anymore."

When he opened his eyes again, Taichi had tears running down his face, which in the moment was infuriating.

"Chihiro… I-I didn't know, I was just…"

Taichi's world spun. He had vertigo. He held onto the stair rail. How could he have had no idea about this? All this time, he'd been making Chihiro upset? When he'd only been trying to…

"I was only trying to _support you."_ His voice cracked.

"This is exactly why I didn't tell you," Chihiro said. It felt like a dagger through the heart; it made Taichi flinch.

"Wh... What?"

"I wanted to tell you that you were making me upset, but… but I couldn't because I knew _you_ would get upset! I knew you would cry! And I'd make you feel totally awful! So I never told you, because I'd rather feel hurt every day than say something that'd get you upset like this!"

Taichi looked horrified. "Chihiro… Chihiro, _no,_ you're not supposed to care about that! _You're not supposed to care how I feel!_ It doesn't matter!"

 _"That's what you always say!"_ Chihiro yelled. _"You always say that and it's stupid, that's not how it works! Of_ _course_ _I care about the way you feel! You're my_ ** _dad_** _—I care about you more than_ ** _anything_** _!"_

Taichi ran to his son and dropped to his knees, pulling him tightly against him. Taichi cried. Chihiro cried. They held one another. For a few minutes, that's all they did.

 _"My son,"_ Taichi said quietly. Chihiro cried harder, and Taichi smiled despite himself. He stood and picked Chihiro up, cradling him like he were much younger than he was. Chihiro was 16 years and 364 days old.

"I love you so much, my son."

Somewhere in the house, a clock struck midnight, and Chihiro turned seventeen in his father's arms.

"Always, always."

* * *

Akiko Fujisaki was in the dining room, and, never having eaten dinner, was dining on the remains of a smashed pink cake.

She was caught in the act when Taichi carried Chihiro in from the garage, and she stared in disbelief at their red, raw faces. This was exactly what she meant when she said their relationship was more emotional than she could ever comprehend. Chihiro kissed his father's cheek and Akiko shook her head.

"What on earth were you two _talking about_ out there? Did you ever even leave for the cake?"

Taichi smiled and set Chihiro in a chair beside Akiko, taking for himself the one beside it. "No. Chihiro and I will go pick out a new one in the morning."

Akiko made a motion towards the clock, which now read 12:03, and so she and Taichi performed one of many birthday traditions. They held Chihiro between them, their cheeks pressed to his, and squeezed him tightly. "Birthday squeeze for the birthday girl!" Akiko said, and Chihiro giggled, feeling a bit lighter than he had in awhile.

"Birthday boy," Taichi corrected.

"Shit." Akiko said. "We've gotta redo it now." They did.

"Birthday squeeze for the birthday boy!"

Taichi eyed the cake Akiko had been eating while they were gone. "You gonna share that?"

Akiko flicked the fork at him. Taichi picked it up and raised it into the air like he were toasting.

"To our very last pink cake."

"... Actually," Chihiro said, "I really do like pink a lot. So maybe we could get another pink one, still? Just with something else written on it?"

Taichi gave a pained smile, but Akiko laughed so hard she almost fell out of her chair.


End file.
